


Stay Safe

by Underestimated_amateur



Series: Honey Eyes And a Wolf's Heart [12]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Character Death, Child Stiles, Derek-centric, Family Secrets, Fluff, Gen, Implied Mates, Kid Fic, M/M, Mild Gore, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Werefox Stiles, Young Adult Derek, murders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 19:20:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14119164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Underestimated_amateur/pseuds/Underestimated_amateur
Summary: Derek is seventeen when he starts to figure it out. Stiles is ten when he’s told he can’t be Batman for the first time.





	Stay Safe

**Author's Note:**

> *Uploads this then crawls back under the rock I came from*

 

Derek is seventeen when he starts to figure it out. Stiles is ten when he’s told he can’t be Batman for the first time.

 

Another body has been found a few days ago. It was on a Sunday when John brought home the victim's files, looking them over at the kitchen table after dinner. Derek had stayed the night, having the day off tomorrow. Stiles didn’t wait a single second more once they set their dishes in the sink before dragging the wolf off to play before bed. Derek let himself be herded along with little reluctance. Apparently, over the week Stiles had gotten a new video game he wanted to show the other.        

They shuffle into the living room and Derek plops down in front of the tv on the floor, letting Stiles get the game set up. He’s not too big on video games himself, but he’s often roped into playing them anyway. Not that he really minds. When the game is finished loading, the wolf picks up the controller. Selecting a character, he begins, only growing confused when he can’t get over an easy obstacle in his way.

“How do I jump?” he asks, mashing one of the buttons frustratingly.

“It’s circle,” Stiles supplies helpfully.

“Why isn’t it X anymore?”

“I changed the controls to mess with Scott, but I can’t figure out how to change them back.” The little fox grins up at Derek, eyes twinkling.

Derek huffs, fighting back a smile as he goes into the control settings. “Hang on, I'll fix it.”

Stiles snickers. Throwing his arms around the older boy, he leans his entire weight on him and rubs his cheek against the other’s arm. “Thanks Sourwolf,” he coos dramatically. Derek has half of a mind to push him off, but decides it's not worth the effort as he fixes the little one’s mess. Once the settings are how they should be, he starts playing the game only to hand the controller to Stiles less than a minute later when he dies. The brat even laughs at him as he does.

“Derek, Stiles,” a voice; Claudia, calls urgently from another room. “John and I need to step out for a few hours, okay? We have our phones on if you need anything or something happens. We'll be back around ten.”

“Okay, Mom,” Stiles yells back, never looking away from his game. Derek furrows his brows at the screen.

“There's money on the table if you guys need to order pizza,” John's voice is next, “and be in bed by nine.”

“Okay, Dad!” Stiles passes the level without dying once. Derek; however, listens pass the game, ears zoning in to the parents’ movements. Before leaving, Claudia kisses both of their foreheads and John ruffles their hair. He nods when John tells them to be safe and shrugs when Claudia apologizes for ‘springing this onto him’. The two are in too big of a hurry to catch if there's anything odd in Derek’s behavior and trek out the front door. If he concentrates, Derek can hear the sound of the door locking and their feet slapping against the wet ground from when it rained this morning. He waits, listening to the vehicle roar to life and back out of the driveway. The engine isn't very loud and the tires slide into the street with ease; they're taking John's police car, not Claudia's jeep. Interesting.

They speed away, the car's rumbling getting softer the further away they go.

Then they're gone.

Derek stands, making his way out of the living room and done the hall. Vaguely, he hears Stiles sputter out protest and pause the game, getting to his feet as well to follow close behind. There, at the end of the hall, is a small room the sheriff uses as a home office. Through past snooping, he's learned by now that John has a bad habit of forgetting to lock the door. So he's not surprised when the knob turns without any reluctance.

“We're not supposed to go in there,” Stiles says.

Derek jerks around behind him. For a moment, he forgot that it's Stiles and almost goes into a monologue of why this should remain a secret between them. But then he remembers that the kid is, in fact, Stiles, and knows that would be stupid.

Stiles is grinning. He's not going to run and tell anyone.

He wants in on whatever Derek is planning.

“I'm looking for something,” Derek admits, moving to the large wooden desk in the corner of the room, where John always is at on late nights full of hard cases. He's been at the desk a lot lately. Normally there's a cluster of folders on top of it, but right now surface is organized and clean; Claudia must have gotten to it recently. She usually is the one to keep her husband's head on his shoulders. Derek tries to open the top drawer, but it doesn't budge.

‘Locked,’ he notes. Crap, what now?

“Looking for what?”

The wolf looks over his shoulder. Stiles is cocking his head at him curiously, but expectantly.

Sighing, Derek gives in. “Some papers I'm not really allowed to see. I need to get this drawer open.”

The kit blinks at him, then at the drawer, before lifting his eyes back to Derek. He nods, seeming to understand. “Oh, okay.” He runs off then, leaving Derek to stare after him in moderate confusion.

The wolf’s attention falls back to the drawer a second later.

Right.

Suppressing a groan, he pulls out the desk chair and plops down into it with his head in his hands. What exactly he is doing, he thinks to himself. Sneaking into the _sheriff's_ private office? Again? Going through murder files while going behind the backs of the family who took him in? Going behind his pack’s trust?

But what else is can he do, he argues with himself. Something was going on and he's so tired of feeling like there's some veil over his head. He can’t pretend he doesn’t hear Claudia or John’s hushed whispers behind his back or the unreadable glances they send him. He can’t shake off the stares every time he’s out on the streets. He can’t say he feels safe. He can’t do any of those things anymore.

He worries constantly, despite never saying it out loud. Not just for himself, but for his family too. Recently he started visiting Peter twice a week instead of once, even if all he does is read book after book and finish homework. Every night he calls the Stilinskis and manages to talk to Stiles for an hour before the little one has to go to bed. He knows he can’t protect them every second of the day, but he still feels like he has to try.

He drops his hands from his face, curling them into tight fists in his lap.

Something is bound to give, to snap. A storm is brewing, and he feels like it’s so far out of his control it terrifies him. As if he’s about to be struck by lightning.

He doesn’t realize he’s on the verge of a break down when he feels something covering his hand. He startles, eyes snapping over to beside him and finds Stiles there. The little one’s own hand is small against his own, but it’s warm, comforting, and grounding. He starts to calm.

“You okay, Dere? You smell weird again, not sad, but…”

Derek takes a deep breath, “I’m okay.”

Stiles nods, a smile gracing his lips. “Okay,” he says, taking the other’s word for it.

Derek frowns, wondering how they can open the drawer without a key or breaking it. He gives the kit an odd look when Stiles holds up a butter knife, showing it off like a prize. Before he can comment, Stiles turns to the desk and jams the knife into the lock of the top drawer, jerking it around. Seconds later there’s a click, the drawer unlocks. Stiles grins, taking out the knife and pulling the drawer open.

Derek ruffles his soft brown hair in gratitude, feeling the tips of his lips curl upwards. He leans closer, fingering through the set of files until he finds the few he's looking for. He drops them onto the desk, leafing through every paper inside each folder. Each are the newest victims of the mystery murderer, two males and a little girl. They all died of blood loss and a bullet. One of the men was in his earlier thirties, the other in his late teens. Still no pattern, still no answers.

He looks at the little girl a little longer than the others. The picture of her dead body shows she has had long blonde hair and dull blue eyes. Derek tries to ignore the churning in his stomach at the bullet hole between her collar bones. She could be the same age as styles, she's so young. Who could do such a thing like this? To brutally murder a child, for what reason? He runs his thumb over the crime scene photo, confused by the sense of familiarity he feels. He swears he's seen her before, but he can't place how he would know her.

“What about this one?” Stiles cuts in, holding up a new file Derek's never seen before. “Looks important or something. There's a date on it, I think it's new?”

Taking it out of the kit's hands, Derek opens it up and check it over. He freezes on spot.

The man's name is Garrison Myers.

Clutching the papers in a vice grips, his hands shake slightly as he refiles through the report for a crime photo, but there isn't one. Swallowing, he reads over the paperwork instead, what little there is of it. He reads it twice, because he's not sure he read it right the first time.

This crime is different from the rest; there’s no bullet wound or signs of tazing. His eyes trail over every word, but his mind is still stuck on ‘maimed’ and ‘animal attack’. Whatever attacked him obviously wasn’t human, the way they describe it. There’s suspension of a wolf being the culprit, but there hasn’t been much of a sign of any in California in years. At least, not one’s living double lives. Another possibility the police are apparently trying to pass it off as is a mountain lion, but Derek is starting to think that might be bullshit.

He also thinks he isn’t the only one drawing the same conclusion he is.

But he needs to know for sure.

This technically wasn’t a murder if the guy isn’t dead. He was carried off to the hospital, beaten and barely conscious, but alive. The report was filed yesterday, listing the time and hospital, so there’s a high chance he’s still there. With his next move in mind, Derek quickly tucks all of the papers back into the drawer. He asks Stiles to lock it back and the kit does so.

“You know my number, right?”

Stiles frowns, “yeah?”

“Call me if anything happens okay? I need to step out for a bit.” He closes the office door behind them once they’re out of the private room. Stiles follows behind him into the living room, like a frantic puppy.

“What do you mean? Derek, where are you going? What did you read?”

Derek bites his lip, eyes lingering on the door before giving his attention back to Stiles. His voice and frown are as calmly stern as he can be right now. “It's okay. Listen, I need you to call me if anything at all happens. Don't open the door, keep the windows locked, and only answer the phone if you see it's mine or your parents’ numbers. I need to do something, I won't even be gone an hour. I just need to check something, but I don't think it's safe to bring you along with me.”

“Not Safe!?” the kit sputters, horrified. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

Derek curses himself inside his own head as he watches Stiles begin to panic. He doesn’t mean to scare the other. He doesn’t want to leave him here, but if there really has been someone⎼ or something⎼ stalking him these past years, then Derek’s not sure if he’s safe either. The very thought of leaving his mate home alone causes his chest to ache, but he doesn’t want to bring Stiles with him. It’s best not to get him involved. Derek kneels down in front of the child, trying his best to look stern. “You need to stay here–”

“But why? I want to go with you!” Stiles stomps his foot, looking up at the wolf with a puckered bottom lip and big brown eyes.

“That’s not a good idea,” he frowns, swallowing down the guilt he feels.

“But what if you need backup? I’m your Batman, remember? And you’re my Catwoman! We need each other!”

Derek runs a hand through his hair, exhaling a shaky breath. That is hard to dismiss.

“You’re right, but not this time, Stiles. Batman needs to stay in the Batcave.”

The kit looks like he’s about to cry. Derek tries and fails not to feel worse. He holds his arms out and Stiles crashes into him, almost knocking them both over. The little one’s small arms coil around him as he holds Stiles in return, just as tight. He’s not much of a hugger, or a touchy person in general, but Stiles has always been an exception.

“It’ll be okay,” Derek tries to reassure him, rubbing circles on the kit’s back. “I just need you to be safe.”

“But Derek,” Stiles sniffles, “I want you to be safe too.”

“I will be.”

“Promise?” Stiles pulls away, holding the other shifter’s hands and looking at him with wet, determined eyes.

Derek smiles despite himself. “Yeah, I promise.”

A moment passes before Stiles reluctantly nods. “I know you will,” he says, and the two of them separate. Derek ruffles his hair again and runs upstairs to grab his jacket that had been thrown onto the little one’s messy bed in Stiles’s room. From across the hall, he hears the door of John and Claudia’s room slam shut. Stiles must still be upset. Derek doesn’t completely blame him.

At the top of the stairs, he pauses, looking back at the closed bedroom door and debating if he should check on Stiles before he leaves, just in case. After a brief hesitance, he decides against it. He’ll make it up to Stiles later, when he knows they’re both safe. Mind made up, he descends down the stairs and out the front door, locking it behind him.

 

Time to go.

  


.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back! Sorry for the delay again guys. College has kept me busy. This went through quite a few edits. This part was so long I had to actually cut it in half. The other half will be posted when it's completely finished! Thank you so much for sticking with me and being patient. 
> 
> Let me know what you guys think? I absolutely love any kind of feedback!


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